Georgia Hatfield, a sophomore elementary education major, loves Christmas and celebrates all season by wearing Christmas sweaters. Most people have one or two Christmas sweaters, as ugly Christmas sweater parties and themes are common during the holidays. Hatfield enjoys collecting and searching for the perfect sweater to add to her growing collection. Her collection has expanded over the years: she has accumulated over three large tubs numbering over 35 festive sweaters. Hatfield also has other Christmas accessories in her collection including headbands, leggings, necklaces and hats. 

During the Christmas season and even after Christmas, Hatfield is on the hunt for more sweaters for her collection. She gets sweaters from a variety of places including Dillards, Kohls, Cracker Barrel and Walmart, among other stores. Hatfield enjoys a good ugly Christmas sweater but dislikes how boring some are due to the product’s commercialization. She enjoys lights and other embellishments but dislikes when lights are low quality or make cleaning difficult. Among her collection, Hatfield’s favorite sweater is her mom’s vintage black turtleneck with reindeer. According to Hatfield’s philosophy, the best Christmas sweater has lots of personality and a hint of cuteness. “If I could see my grandma wearing it, I usually buy it,” said Hatfield.

Hatfield started her collection as a freshman in high school after her mother began embellishing Christmas sweaters for sweater parties. She jokingly told her mom, “I should wear a Christmas sweater every day.” Hatfield’s mom usually makes her a sweater a year and she even went as a Christmas tree for Halloween one year. Black Friday marks the official day for wearing a Christmas sweater each day. Hatfield begins with the more simple Christmas sweaters and gradually moves to her crazier sweaters as Christmas approaches. 

Hatfield says the best part about wearing a different Christmas sweater every day is seeing the reactions that people have to her fun sweaters. “People enjoy sweaters, and some have told me it’s their favorite part of the day seeing what sweater I wear,” said Hatfield. Her large collection of sweaters fascinates many and she says the most burdensome part is when people constantly ask to borrow her sweaters for Christmas parties. She often gets gifted new Christmas sweaters and even Christmas sweater ornaments or accessories. Make sure to check out Georgia Hatfield’s Christmas sweater collection as she wears a different festive sweater every day on the Hill!

This past summer, Macye Williams transferred her job with Fresh Ideas from McPherson College to William Jewell College. After working at the Cage for about a month, she has quickly made an impression on the student body with her positive, joyous attitude. I met with Macye at the Cage to chat about how she ended up working at Jewell, her favorite Cage item and her upbeat attitude.

“I’m originally from McPherson, Kansas. I actually just recently moved to the Kansas City area in June, and the reason I decided on Kansas City was just because I needed new, open space from McPherson, you know. I also wanted to continue working with Fresh Ideas. I was working with Fresh Ideas at McPherson College. Then, over the summer, I was working at Camp Bartle with Fresh Ideas, and that’s how I got the job here. I was given recommendation to Kiki [Strecker], and Kiki got me the job here.”

When asked about whether she’s enjoyed her experience working at Jewell so far, Macye shared that, despite a culinary learning curve, she treasures the close interaction she has been able to have with students.

“I really like [working at Jewell]. I’ve never done cooking before actually. This is my first time actually doing it. Camp Bartle was like [an] introduction to cooking for me because I was really thrown into that without even knowing that I was going to cook. I really like it here. The students are great. Everyone is so patient with me when I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s great!

“My favorite thing is that I get to be more one-on-one with the students, and I can have conversations with them while also helping them. That’s really, really nice.”

After a month of learning the ins and outs of the Cage’s menu items, Macye has decided on a clear personal favorite.

“I really like the Power Sandwich. It’s so good. I just really like vegetables, so obviously the spinach on it is great. The multigrain is so much better than just plain white bread… And the provolone cheese melted on the ham and everything. It’s so good, man.”

Before I met with her, I overheard her tell a coworker that she had worked the closing shift at the Cage the night before and got only a few hours of sleep before returning for her morning shift that day. Still, beaming as she took orders from students and laughing throughout my interview with her, Macye remained so upbeat and jovial that you’d never expect she was running on only a few hours of sleep.

Macye reflected on how she keeps up this impenetrably positive attitude.

“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know why it is, I’ve just always been like this. Some days are obviously harder than others, but it’s so much easier to get through the day with an upbeat, positive attitude because when you’re down, the day is just gonna go longer. If you don’t have anything good to look at [you can just say], like, ‘Hey! You got through five minutes. That’s good!’”

“I don’t want to do one thing. I want to do many things. Part of that is dance. I’ve danced since I was nine years old. In high school, I was on the dance team, but I never got to choreograph anything for the team. So when I got to college and made the team, I found out that as a sophomore you have that ability [to choreograph]. As soon as I found that out as a freshman, I was like ‘all right, let’s get started.’ So the dance that I wanted to do was to this song. It always starts with a song. It was “I Can Only Imagine.” I heard that song – I’m a big musicality gal – and I looked for accents and things like that. So I was listening to it, and then I created it piece by piece. I remember sitting in Responsible Self and drawing out motions and counts to this dance that I wanted to create. So after a year of meditating on this, I finally got to teach the team. We performed it one time, and it was the very last football game of last year’s season. It was our coldest game and we were dressed in all black and had our white poms. Because of the cold and because it was our last football game, there was almost nobody in the audience. It was kind of sad, but it didn’t take away from to justification and the verification that I felt from performing because it was what everything was leading up to. It wasn’t just for my eyes and not just the team’s eyes. It was broadcasted for other people. That was the most important part. It had made it from my head onto a stage. Even though that stage was the grass in Greene Stadium in front of maybe a hundred people. But it was still very significant for me. I want to keep doing it indefinitely. I want to keep doing dance for as long as I can. I want to keep creating things for as long as I can.”

The Hilltop Monitor spoke to Kellsie Herrmann, senior political science, international relations and French major, about her experiences at William Jewell College and the opportunities she’s taken advantage of while at the institution.

Herrmann spoke about the  time she spent abroad during the spring semester of her junior year, at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

“It was amazing. I think everyone should do some stint abroad — the longer the better. Because it really, I know a lot of people say this, but it really does open up your eyes to things that you never really think about and just put things into perspective of what’s important and what isn’t, and how to enjoy life and how to not just have things on a check marked list and just go down the list,” Herrmann said. “I think I really learned how to live life to the fullest there, which I know is really cliché and I’m a little embarrassed but ‘tis true.”

Immediately after coming home from France, Herrmann found it difficult to re-adjust to her life in the United States.

“Coming back was pretty tough, initially, because Missouri is not Paris, France, and also just not having the opportunity of doing something new and fun and exciting each and every day is just really heartbreaking. Because this day could be the most boring and monotonous day ever, but in the end I’m in Paris, France. The signs are in a different language, and the people are speaking different languages and I’m in a city — which is different from Liberty, Missouri,” she said. “So just recognizing that every day here, while it’s different because you have friends and family and culture that you know and feel comfortable with it’s still kind of boring — for lack of a better word — and coming back to that is a little hard sometimes.”

However, Herrmann was quick to note that people don’t have to be abroad to seek out adventures. Above all, she believes it is important to put one’s self outside of their comfort-zone and everyday life.

“I view the college experience, at least in the academic way, as you have this set amount of time to get as much out of it as possible. You’re already paying for the classes, you’re already paying for the books and everything, so you might as well put all your being into getting as much as possible,” she said. “So, forcing myself to take classes that are difficult, that are not going to be easy and I’m not going to have a great time doing them, but then looking back on that experience and being like ‘now I know these things and that’ll help me just a little more in life and in my own personal goals of how I want to live that life.’”

Herrmann was quick to point out that growth while in college does not only come from academic experiences.

“You have the typical things like taking on leadership experiences, joining a sorority, doing that crazy bar hopping at Power and Light which is over-expensive and weird but you do it anyway because you’ve never bar hopped before. Just doing things that are kind of weird and ‘why not’ because you’ve never done it before and who’s to say what you do and don’t like,” said Herrmann.

Herrmann plans to continue to step outside of her comfort zone after she graduates — primarily by joining the Peace Corps. She also spoke about how her time at Jewell has impacted her post-college plans.

“That [joining the Peace Corps] honestly wasn’t affected by Jewell just because I’ve wanted to do that since high school. Jewell does have this fun way of mixing things up in a way you don’t really expect. In the path I’ve chosen at Jewell I’ve experienced a lot and put myself in different atmospheres and zones of comfort, which I think is really important in college,” Herrmann said. “I came into school thinking I wanted to be in a foreign service officer in the state department but now I’m like ‘Hmm, maybe I’ll join the military or maybe I’ll do United Nations work or maybe I’ll just teach high school history for the rest of my life, I don’t know.’ But before coming to school I was definitely structured — like five, 10, 15, 20 year plans — and just recognizing that it’s okay to be kind of in the unknown and that has its own glamour in a way.”

The crux of Herrmann’s value system can be summarized by her closing thoughts.

“Putting yourself in uncomfortable positions is super important to grow as a person.”

Photos by Hannah Koehler